Bruno BARBIER obtained his phD from the
University of Montpellier in 1994. He then worked 4 years at the International Food Policy
Research Institute where he developed bioeconomic models at the watershed and community
level. He joined CIAT in July 1998 where he is developing decision support tools at
different scales from the farm to the national level. He is also analyzing national level
database.

Title: "Poverty and natural
resource degradation in Honduras: An assessment at country level." Co-author:
Gregoire Leclerc.

The paper addresses different issues
relative to the relations between natural resource degradation and poverty in Honduras.
First we try to clarify the concepts which are often tainted by many myths and
preconceived ideas. For example, we discuss the relevance and demonstrability of the
poverty trap hypothesis, for which it is assumed that poverty leads to resource
degradation, which in turn drives more poverty. This leads to an evaluation of the
relative contribution to resource degradation both from small farmers and from large
farmers and companies.

Second we show through spatial analysis
of poverty and natural resources (such as agricultural potential and land degradation)
that the cause/effect relationship between these factors is possible, but can be difficult
to extract and interpret. For instance we suggest that the low potential regions are also
the least connected to the market, probably because of their low potential. Studies
suggest that return to investment in low potential areas can be lower than in high
potential areas where investments are already important. In other word the lack of
infrastructure magnifies a supposed deficiency in natural resources of the low potential
areas. We show that the relation between poverty and degradation is much more difficult to
establish. We used the Glasod map as a proxy for land degradation, and various poverty
indices derived from census data. We see that although positive relationships with poverty
do exist in some cases, ancillary data provided by local experts is needed to validate
them.

We analyze the implication of our
findings in the scope of the contribution of Natural Resource Management to poverty
alleviation. This is done through a comparative analysis of small and large scale farming
with respect to prices, policies (subsidies, incentives, etc.), labor and machinery, and
access to markets.